EDEXCEL EXAMPLER ESSAY ON VIOLENCE IN A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

Within a ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ violence is presented dramatically through out often serving as a contextual reminder of the harsh realities of the new post-war America. It could be said that Williams’ exploration of violence, using techniques of subtleties in dialogue as well as outrageous implications, is an explicit social commentary of the world that protagonist Blanche Dubois is faced with, emphasizing the reality of danger for a woman so lost in fantasy.

A large proportion of violence is explored through its ironic relationship with the equally powerful emotion love. This can be seen in all domestic relationships for example Steve and Eunice, ‘she says she’s going to call the police’, who possibly provide an eerie foreshadowment of what Stella and Stanley’s relationship will become over time, exemplifying how violence is a permanent feature in their relationship but also how there will be no intervention as it is contextually ignored.

Other references in stage directions early on ‘Stanley slaps Stellas thigh’ not only show the social acceptability of violence but also the sexual undertones of it for Stanley. This is especially dangerous to Blanche’s survival as it foreshadows how he mixes these two feelings later on before her implied rape, ‘All right lets have some rough-house.’ This irony of how Blanche’s own weapon of sex is being used against her not only points out a blatant danger through the use of dialogue, but Williams has also used it to foreshadow how her love for fantasy and escaping reality will also be used against her when she is institutionalized for insanity.

 Williams expresses how these two strong emotions often fuel one another; this is a constant feature of Stella and Stanley’s relationship. Stella refers to their wedding night where Stanley smashed the light bulbs as, ‘thrilling’ showing how perhaps contextually people could not recognize the innate difference between passionate, love or hate, and the repression that was expected of their society caused these feelings to manifest in such a volatile way. This theme of linked emotions could also suggest why Elysian Fields is hazardous for Blanche; she herself is full of repressed desires and in such a claustrophobic setting, ‘just the ‘two rooms’ these lay the foundations of an emotionally traumatic climax; the implied rape.

Violence is also explored contextually through all male characters. The first male we meet is a sailor, ‘I’ve got a date.’ This shows Williams already playing upon the sailor stereotype of sexual primiscuity of 1940s America which is furthered to explore violence through the character of Stanley predominantly. Stanley is a characterized as ex-army, ‘two-forty-first’ is mentioned briefly; this relationship and background of war is considered to be where he became a man. This is possibly a metaphor for how in post-war America, Blanche cannot survive because life is created around violence and warzones, even if these are gender and class.

These warzones are mirrored within the Kowalski apartment, personified by Blanche and Stanley. This is emphasized by how territorial Stanley is, ‘Get out the bathroom!’ This suggests his resentment of the upper classes which Blanche returns with the slur ‘Polack’ indicating the superiority she feels her family has to Stanley’s, ‘I guess this is what we have to mix our bloodline with now’. This hatred is a technique of irony as it is later revealed that use of the word ‘Polack’ is what enrages Stanley leading to the rape. This resentment is once again an indicator of how life in Elysian Fields is not safe for Blanche.

 Other altercations involving men include Mitch, who contradicts his apparent character, most likely due to social pressures of the context, ‘you’re not clean enough to bring in the house.’ This references Blanche’s sexual past and leads to a potential further rape scene with ‘he still remains staring’ stated in the stage directions. This explores how sexual desire and violence were all traits of the ideal post war USA man; this exposure of the darker side of reality may not only expose the dangers of violence to Blanche in Elysian Fields but also may be a comment on the domestic violence that was uninterrupted in that era possibly from an autobiographal perspective on Williams behalf. It suggests that the ideal man was one of a violent nature and it is Blanche’s connection with men that often hurts her as seen through dramatic irony in the case of her deceased husband Allan.

Violence is once more represented here with sexual intentions but now with contextually shocking links to homosexuality. Violence is explored through Allans suicide, ‘he’d stuck the revolver into his mouth and fired’. This time it is Blanche’s cruelty ‘you disgust me’ that led to his death, which ultimately began her destruction, self-inflicted. This could foreshadow how Williams knew society would blame Blanche, the upper class woman, for her own rape, ‘we’ve had this date from the beginning’ suggesting that violence against women was seen as a disciplinary act that they deserved. Thus mirroring how Blanche’s reaction to Allan’s sexuality is very similar to Mitch’s reaction to her own, ‘you’re not clean enough’. It outlines how through foreshadowment Williams explores how in a society ridded with sexism and homophobia, violence is a constant danger, suggesting why Elysian Fields cannot be a safe place for Blanche to survive.

The issue of sexism and violence is furthered by Stanley’s way of apologising to Stella, ‘he gave me ten dollars’ which could show how due to the forced housewife role, 1940s women were subject to domestic violence as they did not have the means to escape. Violence is used by Williams to not only increase the intensity of characters relationships but presented as the foundations of their social structure.

In conclusion violence is presented in a streetcar named desire as a genuine constant feature of a relationship. It is portrayed as a tool of punishment for everyone but the idolized straight white male stereotype of the time. It indicates that the male characters use violence as a normalized reaction to those they deem inferior. However, it is also implied throughout the play that violence is the ideal that post-war America was built around, including the violent clash of the south and North. It indicates the moral decay of society that Williams depicts. The civility of a nation will die with the ‘Old South,’ the south that Blanche represents, hence her downfall could be inevitable. How violence is portrayed could be seen as an ill expression of love, lust and anger that is continuously enforced through the gender roles within the play, such as Blanche, Stella and Eunice as well as societies feminization of homosexuals e.g. Allan who can be seen as feminised as he is also a victim of violence; a tool used to control women.

I believe Williams portrayal of violence as cruel and brutal shows it as an unnecessary basis of the world he was surrounded by and so it is exposed and portrayed consistently as the poisonous bonds that are holding everything together. The violence is consistently not a crime within the context of the play, despite leading to the most painful events for Blanche, hence the constant danger posed to her by the paradise that is Elysian Fields.